When it comes to televised “junk food,” a lot of people point to reality TV as their guilty pleasure. But my guilty pleasures are Chinese historical dramas — called C-dramas by those who enjoy them — and I just stumbled across an absolutely wild C-drama game: New One Studio’s Road to Empress, which launched in September on Windows PC, Mac, and mobile devices, but only landed on my radar recently.
Road to Empress is a narrative RPG set in the Tang Dynasty, and like most historical Chinese dramas, its plot has roots in reality, as it is inspired by the true story of China’s only female emperor, Wu Zeitan. Also like most C-dramas, its plot is absolutely bonkers. Someone is poisoned at nearly every meal, and even wearing the wrong dress can get you killed. A perfect example of this comes in the game’s opening scene, in which a group of the imperial harem’s newest members (called Cairens) first arrive at the palace.
Protagonist Wu Yuanzhao has managed to earn a position as a Cairen, and as the group waits to meet the high-ranking Wei, Consort of Preciousness, Yuanzhao’s childhood friend and fellow Cairen Liu Xi offers her a beautiful golden hairpin shaped like a peony. Yuanzhao politely turns it down, as she knows it was a gift from Liu Xi’s mother, and likely means a great deal to her. Liu Xi attempts to force the gift into Yuanzhao’s hands, resulting in the hairpin falling to the ground, right as a palace staff member announces that the Consort Wei has arrived.
It doesn’t take long for Consort Wei to notice the pin, and after she expresses how much she likes it, players are given the choice to have Yuanzhao claim that the pin is hers, admit that it actually belongs to Liu Xi, or claim it belongs to one of the other women in the group. I went with the last choice, and another Cairen quickly claimed it as her own. This immediately resulted in disaster, as apparently peonies are a favorite of the Empress, and wearing one to the palace as a low-ranking Cairen is an insult to Her Grace! The Cairen who claimed this pin as her own was dragged off by guards for a grisly punishment, while I was left wondering if Liu Xi had known this would happen. She seemed almost desperate to make me take the pin, and I began to wonder if her gift was actually an attempt to get me kicked out of the palace (or worse).
C-dramas tend to push the definition of “historical,” often functioning much like American soap operas, with wild plot twists involving secret identities, secret pregnancies, and murder plots. The main difference between C-dramas and soaps are the elaborate sets, props, and costumes, and Road to Empress absolutely lives up to other historical C-dramas like The Princess Weiyoung and Yanxi Palace when it comes to visuals. The game consists entirely of beautifully shot live-action cutscenes (punctuated by moments where players are faced with a choice), and features intricate period-accurate costumes, sets, and props.
Admittedly, the game’s quality is somewhat negatively impacted by those live-action scenes, since it would likely cost an unfathomable amount of money to film enough of them to allow for a complex, branching narrative. Player choices certainly have an effect on the game, but a lot of the time, Road to Empress presents you with a trio of choices, and only one will let you move forward.
Still, I found that these limited choices actually added to the game’s charm. At one point, I got sent to the dungeon. I forget why, exactly, but I’m pretty sure it was for wearing a dress that was deemed “too flashy.” Anyway, once imprisoned, I was given some bread to eat. Immediately after consuming it, I keeled over, dead, because the bread was poisoned. The second time around, I opted not to eat the bread. The next day, I was given gruel, which I foolishly ate, once again dying by poison. Okay, I get it, don’t eat anything in the prison. I reloaded and tried again, turning down both the poisoned bread and the poisoned gruel. I then promptly died of starvation in a moment that had me legitimately laughing out loud.
I eventually reloaded a previous save and picked a less-flashy dress.
Road to Empress certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of (probably poisoned) tea. But for C-drama fans (or folks who simply enjoy off-the-wall FMV games), it makes for an entertaining, beautiful, and downright hilarious gaming experience. And it seems there’s more to come — the game’s final cutscene serves as a sort of trailer for New One Studio’s next entry in the franchise, Road to Empress 2, which will pick up where the first game left off.
